


The Iron Casanova Program

by textbookchoices



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Witch Curses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:21:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27887455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/textbookchoices/pseuds/textbookchoices
Summary: “You know,” Peter calls out, pulling on his mask quickly—though he’s still wearing his tux so he must look ridiculous, but the mask helps regulate his senses so he had it in his pocket, and of course healwayshas his web shooters on, just in case, “with as often as these galas get attacked, you’d think people would stop wanting to attend them!”Mr. Stark lands next to him, helmet slamming down just as he says, “That’s half the reason they come, kid.”Man, watching Mr. Stark suit up as Iron Man will never not be cool.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 108
Collections: Consent Issues Exchange 2020





	The Iron Casanova Program

**Author's Note:**

  * For [salable_mystic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/salable_mystic/gifts).



Mr. Stark looks incredible, just like he always does.

Peter can’t even imagine how much the tuxedo he’s wearing must have cost, but the sleek, smooth lines and the way it clings to Mr. Stark’s thighs and arms make it worth every penny. The vest underneath is red, because of course it is, and the smirk Mr. Stark’s mouth is curved into completes the entire look. If only he weren’t standing by the bar, a martini in his hand and a beautiful brunette with a curve hugging dress that’s slit up to her hip pressed up against him, laughing at his joke—a joke that wasn’t even that funny.

It was a Dad-level joke, seriously. Peter sinks further into his seat, sighing as he pushes around the ice in his club soda. Steve had stood and watched the men at the doors put the pink bracelet around Peter’s wrist that let the bartender know he was still too young to drink, even though Peter is just two months shy of twenty-one, a college graduate, a veteran Avenger who has helped save the world _three times_ in as many years, and has drank plenty over the last three years at college to boot.

He tugs at his bowtie, uncomfortable as always when he has to wear suits or tuxedos to formal events.

He won’t be able to linger at the table he’s hiding at for much longer. His job tonight is to schmooze as many zeros out of the mingling millionaires as possible for the _Maria Stark Charity Foundation_. He’s particularly popular with the older female crowd, or so Mr. Stark tells him, along with plenty of warnings that the older they are, the less they care about decorum—warnings Peter takes seriously after that time Mrs. Charleston grabbed his butt in the middle of a dance, and just giggled while Peter jumped and spluttered.

Mr. Stark is, of course, popular with everyone.

But especially with young, pretty women with clinging dresses and tall heels and high, lilting laughs. Women who run their hands gently down Mr. Stark’s arm, tracing their nails over his sleeve like they’re aiming to feel the biceps underneath, eyes dark with promise about where the night is going to lead.

Peter’s sure Mr. Stark is just about to take her up on her offer. He’s grinning that _come-hither_ grin he has, the one featured on page 24 of _GQ_ , the magazine Peter keeps safely hidden beneath his mattress at the tower for those nights when he has too much adrenaline to sleep, but Mr. Stark has banned him from the lab and he doesn’t want to run into any of the others in the gym.

Before he can watch Mr. Stark take off with the woman, feeling sorry for himself and his ridiculous crush, he’s hit with a sense of _not right, something bad coming – **there!**_ and the left-facing wall blows up right as he jumps up and shoots a web out to grab a waiter carrying a tray of canapes, yanking him away from the window that’s turned into a dangerous field of exploding glass shards.

“You know,” Peter calls out, pulling on his mask quickly—though he’s still wearing his tux so he must look ridiculous, but the mask helps regulate his senses so he had it in his pocket, and of course he _always_ has his web shooters on, just in case, “with as often as these galas get attacked, you’d think people would stop wanting to attend them!”

Mr. Stark lands next to him, helmet slamming down just as he says, “That’s half the reason they come, kid.”

Man, watching Mr. Stark suit up as Iron Man will never not be cool.

And, well, there _are_ a lot of smartphones already recording everything that’s happening where people are watching them instead of running for the exits that Natasha, Luke and Vision are trying to shove them at. Peter even hears someone yell, “Yeah! Superhero fight!” like you’d cheer for a band or something.

Steve walks up next to him and Mr. Stark, shield in hand, just as a tall man dressed in a long black cloak steps over the broken plaster, stone rubble and shards of glass, coming into the ballroom. He’s clutching a wooden staff that has some sort of crystal ball attached to it, blue sparks spitting out from it dangerously. At least a dozen more people follow him in, all dressed the same and clutching variously colored staffs of their own, but other than the first guy, they all have their heads bowed like a very dedicated and weird cult of wizard people.

Doctor Strange, standing next to Luke a few feet behind Steve, Peter and Mr. Stark, twitches with clear annoyance.

“Breaking and entering seems to be all the rage these days,” Mr. Stark sighs, and then addresses the wizards by calling out: “What, were you angry you didn’t get an invitation? You could have just sent in a complaint through HR.”

Steve adds, “Put down the staffs. You’re facing the Avengers here. You don’t want this fight.”

“Oh, but we do,” the main wizard answers, his voice deep. “We are the Mages of Infinity! The Avengers will rue the day they tried to face us! We will destroy these pretenders and take our place as the rulers of this world in one fatal battle!”

It’s maybe not the nicest thing to tune out your enemy’s villain monologue, but at some point, they all start to sound the same. _Blah blah, the Avengers suck, something something, world domination._ Peter admits to being fairly chatty himself mid-fight, but he’s usually talking while swinging or at least trying to convince the bad guys to… not be bad guys anymore.

Jessica is the first to get annoyed enough to step over a piece of broken wall and punch one of the wizards in the face, right before two arrows knock another two over at the same time, signaling that Clint wasn’t interested in what they were saying either. Peter jumps in a second later, dodging the flashes of colored light being shot out of the various staffs as well as he can. Getting hit with unknown magic light? Historically almost never a good idea. _Almost_ because of that one-time Clint got turned into a dog for three days and claims they were the best three days of his life.

The fight is going pretty well—Peter webs up three of them, Steve knocks a few unconscious, Jessica throws two back into the street, Mr. Stark breaks six of the magic staff things with a single unibeam, and Wanda breaks five more with her own powers—when suddenly, Wanda gets hit in the back with a burst of eerily similar red light and slams into the ground,

She doesn’t cry out, or gasp, or struggle to get back up.

Vision flies toward her quickly, and Steve, the closest one to her, spins around with his shield already in position, when suddenly that same red colored magic hits him straight in the chest. The shield hits the ground with a loud, resounding clang, and Steve drops on top of it, as quiet and motionless as Wanda.

Peter doesn’t wait. His spidey-sense is practically screaming at him, and he doesn’t even turn to properly see his target before he flicks his wrist and shoots an impact web out at the source of the red magic. Then he turns into a swing across the room, and he shoots another, and another, until the pretty brunette in the red dress with the slit up to her hip is held solidly against the wall.

He drops into a crouch on the ground, looking at her. It’s the same woman who’d been flirting with Mr. Stark all night. She struggles against the webs, her face gone red with anger.

“Release me!” she screams, and her voice isn’t so nice anymore, all high and screeching. “ _I_ am the Red Witch! The only one! _Release me!_ ”

“Oh, shut up,” Jessica says, walking past and shaking out a fist.

With the rest of the wizards knocked out, webbed up, or otherwise restrained, and their staffs more or less destroyed, everyone moves toward Wanda and Steve to see what’s going on. Peter peeks around Luke and Jessica. Wanda’s head and shoulders have been placed delicately onto Vision’s lap, where he’s brushing his fingers through her hair, and Bucky is on his knees next to Steve, his face pale and mouth a tight, thin line.

Wanda and Steve are both—sleeping. They’re _sleeping_ , every breath slow and soft, and every heartbeat so quiet and weak that Peter can hardly hear them at all. He swallows anxiously as Doctor Strange lifts his arms out, doing some intricate magic of his own to find out what sort of curse Steve and Wanda must have been hit with and how to reverse it.

Mr. Stark comes up behind him, placing a hand—still in his armor—on Peter’s shoulder comfortingly as they wait for Strange to say something.

Finally, Strange sighs and pinches his brow, muttering, “Utterly ridiculous.”

Bucky growls from his place next to Steve. “What is? Can you fix them or not?”

“It’s just a weak sleeping curse. It can be easily broken through ‘true love’s kiss’,” Strange says, the words more of a disgusted sigh than anything else. “As I said, ridiculous.”

Bucky is frowning, and Vision looks contemplative. But both of them dutifully kiss their partners, and within seconds, Steve and Wanda are blinking awake to the relief of everyone, including Peter. _Sleeping Beauty_ jokes are going to be frequent over the next few weeks, he thinks, just as the witch he’d webbed up starts making a fuss again.

“Tony! Tony, make them release me!”

Mr. Stark grimaces and says, loudly enough for them all to hear, “Okay, so I’m glad I dodged that one.”

“Are you sure, Tony?” Clint starts. “Ladies that want you dead seem to be your thing—"

Tony lifts a hand like he’s about to point at Clint and say something witty in response, except Peter feels that familiar warning sense race up his spine and yells, “Mr. Stark!” just in time for Mr. Stark to slam the Iron Man faceplate down before he gets hit with a wave of red light that sends him slamming into the ground.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter yells again, leaping over the debris on the ground to reach him. But Mr. Stark is already struggling to get back up, brushing plaster off of his suit.

“I’m fine, kid,” Mr. Stark says as Peter registers the background noise of the witch being re-subdued by the other Avengers. “It didn’t get through the armor.”

Peter’s heart settles back in his chest from where it had leapt to his throat. He lets out a little breath and drags the Spider-Man mask down off of his face. Mr. Stark looks at him and lets his faceplate drop again, smiling softly. He touches Peter’s shoulder again as he walks past him to go argue with the others about who has to stay and meet the clean-up crew.

Peter stares helplessly for far too long.

***

The next few weeks are fine. More or less.

Peter eats meals with the team, works on his thesis, tinkers with his suit in the lab and experiments with some of the new Stark Industries prototypes, trying to make them cost effective enough to actually be marketable to normal people. He works out in the gym with Bucky and Steve and on one painfully memorable experience, Jessica and Luke.

He saves a cat, gets pulled out of a dumpster by Dare Devil, breaks up a drug deal, gets two new stories about his reckless menacing of New York City posted in the _Daily Bugle_ , and gets _three_ separate smiles and soft compliments about his work from Mr. Stark.

And one long, lingering look on a late Saturday evening when he spills coffee down the front of his t-shirt and tugs it off there in the lab instead of going up to his room first, to say nothing of the casual, heated press of Mr. Stark’s body against his while they worked on the new Stark Jet engine specs together, so, yeah, pretty good.

Except.

Mr. Stark is tired.

Peter tries not to be creepy about it, but it’s hard not to notice that sort of thing what with how much time Peter and Mr. Stark actually spend together. And for the past two weeks, Mr. Stark has been tired. He’s doing his best to hide it with coffee and dark sunglasses, but Peter notices.

He rubs at his face more often, especially when he doesn’t think anyone is looking. He’s spacing out in the middle of their lab sessions, blinking and coming back to the subject only after Peter says, “Mr. Stark?” two or three times. He’s yawning through dinner and struggling to make it to meetings on time, stretching and wincing like his bones hurt. He flinches at loud noises, moves slowly and even stumbles sometimes, catching himself on desks and walls, and then tries to laugh it off. He’s even leaving lab sessions with excuses about needing his beauty sleep when he and Peter normally stay in the lab until it’s so late that most people would call it early instead.

Peter asked if he was alright, and he’d just shrugged.

“I’m getting old, kid. Just wait until you hit fifty and then see how _you_ feel about all-nighters.”

Peter had rolled his eyes and said, “You’re not that old,” the same way he does whenever Mr. Stark tries to play the old person card, and Mr. Stark had turned to grin at him, walking backwards into his personal elevator, the one that led straight to his apartment on the upper floors of the tower, and said, “Flattery will get you everywhere, kid,” which, naturally, turned Peter into a flustered, spluttering mess long enough for Mr. Stark to escape without having to answer any more questions.

But the weirdest thing is that Peter has been locked out of the lab at least four times in the past two weeks, heading in to work on things only to be turned away when F.R.I.D.A.Y. tells him Mr. Stark has initiated the lab’s Black Out protocol.

The fifth time, well.

Peter stares at the lab doors, the glass tinted so dark that Peter can’t see a thing through it. It’s soundproofed so thoroughly that he can’t even hear anything.

He could leave, like he has in the past. Take to heart the obvious and let Mr. Stark be alone to do whatever it is he’s doing in there all by himself, presumably working on something sensitive or that Peter must not have security clearance for. Peter’s walked in on Mr. Stark napping on the couch in the lab often enough that surely he wouldn’t use the black out protocol just to get some sleep, no matter how tired he might be.

But Peter is… worried.

He’s worried, and okay, he’s in love, has always been in love with Mr. Stark, and probably always will be, and sure, that doesn’t give him the right to butt into Mr. Stark’s business, but it’s enough of an excuse to use the override code Mr. Stark gave him two years ago when Peter had first moved into the tower on a full time basis.

He gave Peter the code for a reason, right? The only other people to have one are Miss Potts, Colonel Rhodes and Doctor Banner. _Steve_ doesn’t even have one.

He plugs in his code, and F.R.I.D.A.Y. opens the doors. He slips in quietly, not wanting to disturb Mr. Stark if he’s working on something delicate after all—there’s only so many times you can accidentally blow up half of the lab without getting seriously injured yourself—and immediately registers a weird noise, like metal hitting metal, and a soft thwacking—slapping?—sound, repeating over and over in a rhythm in tandem with Mr. Stark’s familiar voice, except—except not familiar at all, breathless and panting and _desperate_ , saying, “ **Stop** , shit, stop,” and was he—was Mr. Stark _crying_?

Peter skids fully into the lab and comes to a forced stutter-stop at the sight that greets him.

Mr. Stark, naked and bent at the waist, is clinging to the lab sofa with sweat-slick hands and knees that are shaking. Something— _come, it’s come, it’s Mr. Stark’s come_ —dripping down his stomach and thighs. He has tear tracks running down his cheeks, and his mouth is red, his bottom lip split where he’d apparently bitten it hard enough for it to bleed. His cock—oh God, Peter can _see_ _Mr. Stark’s cock_ —was hard and blisteringly red, so much so that the head almost looked chafed, rubbed too long, too hard, too dry, but still dribbled more come on every swing, every time it slapped against Mr. Stark’s stomach on every thwack, on every _thrust_.

Because Mr. Stark was being fucked.

_Holy shit, Mr. Stark was being fucked **by the Iron Man armor**._

Peter had dreamed about this. He’d had long, intense dreams about this exact situation, except he’d usually been naked and in Mr. Stark’s place, and Mr. Stark had been in the suit, groin plate mysteriously missing rather than the armor taking on an extra appendage, but that wasn’t exactly a deal-breaker—

His stupid voyeuristic staring and fantasy is interrupted when Mr. Stark lets out a pained sob and says, “ _Fuck_ , it’s too much, stop, stop, _stop_.”

A rock drops in Peter’s stomach.

Oh.

 _Oh God_.

He can’t even think about the fact that Mr. Stark had put the lab in Black Out mode for a reason—and the reason was obviously because he didn’t want to be walked in on having sex with an anatomically accurate _Iron Man suit_ , holy shit—because Mr. Stark is saying _no_ , he’s saying _stop_ , and something is wrong, the armor isn’t **listening** , and the golden metal phallus that’s fucking into him looks hard and unrelenting, and when it pulls out, readying itself for another fast-paced thrust, Peter forces himself forward, grabbing the entire suit with both hands and—using far too much strength in his horror—throws it against the lab wall twenty feet away.

It slams into the wall hard enough to dent the cement, and falls apart into all its individual pieces, creating a pile of red and gold metal on the floor.

No longer being held up by the armor, Mr. Stark collapses fully onto the sofa, still naked, whole body shaking, and Peter suddenly realizes that mixed in with the glistening lube on Mr. Stark’s backside is a very distinct spattering of red.

 _Nononononono_.

“Mr. Stark?”

“Shit,” Mr. Stark says again, and he’s covering his face, and he’s shaking, he’s bleeding and he’s shaking and this is _wrong_ , it’s so wrong.

Peter is still half-hard in his jeans and he hates himself for it, his gut churning with guilt and shame and hot anger.

“You weren’t supposed to come in here, kid,” Mr. Stark says, but the words don’t mean much when he’s shaking like that, collapsed on the couch, limp and—and _used_. His voice doesn’t even sound clear, the way it normally does. He sounds—shaken, and hurt, and muffled somehow.

It isn’t the confident voice of Tony Stark that Peter knows so well.

“You’re hurt.”

It’s all Peter can think to say, his mind is going a mile a minute and nothing is sticking.

Mr. Stark laughs, but it’s weak and more of a grimace than a laugh at all.

“Have a safe word. Hadn’t used it.”

Peter stumbles back a step. Mr. Stark shifts, and Peter can suddenly see the bruises on his hips where the armor must have been _holding him down_. First-aid kit. He needs—he doesn’t even know what he needs, a sterile cloth and Neosporin and that stuff you put on bruises, probably, but there’s a first-aid kit under the sink and that’s a place to start. He forces his feet to move.

“You were telling it to stop,” he says, grabbing the first-aid kit.

He knows what a safe word is, obviously, he uses the internet and MJ is one of his best friends. But that doesn’t matter. That can’t matter. It was hurting him. The armor was _hurting him_. Mr. Stark was begging it to stop. It should have _stopped_.

“Yeah, here’s the thing,” Mr. Stark says, and his breath hitches as he moves, arching his body to avoid putting pressure on his lower back and ass as he climbs onto shaking legs. He’s clinging to the sofa, like he doesn’t have the balance to stand on his own. “I think that witch may have, uh, cursed me after all.”

Peter's throat is too dry.

“You shouldn’t stand up yet,” he says, and holds onto the kit uselessly as Mr. Stark ignores him and puts a hand on the wall, still shaking, still standing up. All that, Peter notices, and Mr. Stark’s cock is still pulsing and red, so hard that it’s standing up straight, hardly impacted by the laws of gravity at all.

God, he shouldn’t be _looking_.

“I can’t—” Mr. Stark stalls. He’s trying to explain, and he’s still hurting. Still shaking. Still covered in his own come and blood and bruises from his own armor. The skin on his backside and inner thighs is pink and raw with friction burn, and Peter can practically feel the heat of it from three feet away.

He can’t stop looking. The first-aid kit in his hands is made out of plastic, and the clasp snaps in half in his hands. He hardly notices.

“At first it was just annoying,” Mr. Stark says, frustration and maybe—maybe embarrassment?—in his voice. He still doesn’t sound entirely normal. He sounds tired, a bone deep exhaustion that must have been building in him for a while to get to this point. “I can’t stop thinking about coming. It’s never enough. I thought I’d finish this old program, the ICP—thought it might be able to scratch the itch.”

“ICP?”

Mr. Stark’s mouth twitches.

“The _Iron Casanova_ Program.”

Peter is so stupidly fond of this man and his ridiculous, incredible, _genius_ ideas and his ability to make them become reality, even now, even when they obviously turn out not so great in reality as they might be in fantasy.

“Still wasn’t enough though. I—fuck. I put the safe word in because I needed it to just keep going. Nothing is **enough** ,” he bites out, and it sounds like the words scrape harsh and raw as they’re forced out of his throat. “Pretty sure I’m cursed.”

Peter usually loves magic, or at least, he finds it fascinating. Right now, he sort of hates it.

Mr. Stark has been cursed, and this can’t be the same as that simple sleeping curse the witch had cast on Wanda and Steve, easily broken with a kiss. This was… God, this was awful and intimate and cruel. Mr. Stark’s been cursed to constantly need—what, sex, but without being able to come? Or, no—there’s plenty of evidence leaking down Mr. Stark’s stomach and thighs that proves that idea wrong. But the curse means he’s never satisfied, right? Like being on that precipice of an orgasm and never reaching it, to always need _more_ , to the point of—of hurting yourself to get it. God, Peter can only imagine how terrible that would be. He jerks off just as a form of stress relief at least three or four times a week, let alone all of the… other reasons he can find to touch himself in the privacy of his own room.

Mr. Stark stumbles against the wall.

Peter is such an idiot.

“Let me help you,” he says, and moves quickly to put an arm around Mr. Stark’s bare shoulders, slick from the sweat of being fucked so hard and for so long.

It doesn’t even matter that he’s touching Mr. Stark when he’s naked, even though that’s been a dream of Peter’s for years.

This isn’t how he’d wanted it to happen.

“I’m fine, kid,” Mr. Stark says, assuring him, but it’s a lie. It’s not even a good attempt. His voice cracks on the word _kid_.

Upset, determined, Peter says, “No, you’re not. You’re bleeding.” He falters. “Please let me help you. And then we can… figure something out to break the curse.” Peter has no idea what, but he won’t stop until he figures it out. Maybe they’ll call Doctor Strange. They’ll probably have to, though Peter knows Mr. Stark will hate that idea.

Mr. Stark closes his eyes and rubs at his face. The tear tracks are like tattoos against his skin, and his eyes are red. The blood on his mouth is smeared, just a little.

“Alright. Help me to the elevator.”

Peter could have just carried him, but instead he helps Mr. Stark limp toward the elevator by holding him up as they stumble their way across the lab floor together, one step at a time. Dum-E beeps curiously as they pass, obviously not understanding what’s going on.

Mr. Stark’s personal elevator opens up easily for him, and immediately begins rising once the doors shut on them both. There’s only three stops for this particular elevator—Mr. Stark’s lab, the roof, and Mr. Stark’s personal floor. Nobody has access to it except for Mr. Stark himself, not even Peter. He thinks his override code might work for it, but he’s never needed to find out.

The doors open on Mr. Stark’s floor, and Peter carefully guides Mr. Stark down the hall and into the large bedroom. Gently, he helps Mr. Stark lay down, his stomach against the mattress. Peter can’t help but glance at Mr. Stark’s erection again, and he’s still so hard that his cock is straining and red, practically purple at the head and leaking. It doesn’t look—okay, yes, it looks good, it’s Mr. Stark, but it doesn’t look good at the same time. It just looks like it hurts, and Mr. Stark’s soft gasping moan as he lays down, pressing his cock between his stomach and the mattress, doesn’t sound so much like pleasure as it does agony.

Peter has no idea what possesses himself to do it, but he says, “I’ll, uh, get a towel,” and fumbles his way into Mr. Stark’s bathroom before Mr. Stark can say anything in response. He comes back out less than a minute later and ignores Mr. Stark’s, “Kid, you’ve already gone above and beyond for me here,” and kneels on the ground next to the bed.

“I’m going to help clean you up,” Peter says, and he doesn’t make it question—because he thinks if he asks, Mr. Stark will say no—but waits a moment anyway, and then pretends Mr. Stark’s frustrated sigh means _okay_ , even as the man’s back muscles tense obviously enough that it’s clear he’s uncomfortable with the situation.

Peter has dreamed about touching Mr. Stark’s bare skin more times than he knows, but never like this.

Carefully, he drags the wet washcloth over Mr. Stark’s lower back, gently washing off the mess covering him before applying what he needs to hot, red sensitive skin. The dark, purpling bruises in the shape of fingers are shocking to see up close, but Peter is relieved to realize that the bleeding isn’t as bad as he’d thought it was.

The whole situation is intimate, quiet and still and personal, both of them not speaking, like they’re afraid of saying anything. Peter allows himself to think, for the first time since walking into the lab, _you could have asked me to help. I wouldn’t have let you hurt like this._

Yeah, as if. Mr. Stark asking Peter to help him—to _have sex_ with him—was laughable.

At least Mr. Stark is letting him— _trusts_ him enough to let him help with this. A year or two ago, Peter doesn’t think he would have. But honestly, they’re more than just mentor and mentee now; they’re actual friends. Good ones even. Peter loves Mr. Stark, and yeah, he means it in the _I’d marry you and take you to bed and live happily ever after_ sort of way, but it’s more than just that, and he knows that Mr. Stark loves him too. Not in the same way, but he does. He _does_.

"You're doing really good," Peter finds himself saying, and if his cheeks heat up at his own presumption, well, it's true. Mr. Stark _is_ doing good. He's shuddering, still tense, but he's taking soft, deep breaths, his muscles are slowly relaxing under Peter’s hands.

In answer to Peter’s awkward comment, Mr. Stark huffs out half a laugh and mutters, “Shit,” under his breath and into the pillow beneath him. He shifts, and Peter stills his hands.

"Did I hurt you?" He's trying so hard to be gentle. 

"No," Mr. Stark says, voice tight. "No, you didn't."

It's quiet after that, and Peter tries to be quick when he uses the cloth to clean the lube and small bit of blood from between Mr. Stark’s legs. Mr. Stark tenses even more when Peter touches him there, and he tries to make it as perfunctory as possible.

“You look okay,” he says, because he needs to say something, to fill the too-intimate quiet of the room. It might kill him. “I mean, I don’t think anything is torn or—there’s not very much blood. It looked… worse when I came into the lab.”

He’s rambling, and it’s the worst possible topic to be rambling about. But it’s a distraction from the heat of Mr. Stark’s skin, and how soft it feels against his hand when the towel slips and Peter’s hand touches Mr. Stark’s body directly without that thin barrier.

Mr. Stark makes a soft noise, not a word, but an acknowledgement. His hands are grasping the sheets as they curl into fists, like he’s trying not to give into the pain. Peter gets it; he’s not a virgin. He knows how much sex can hurt if you let it go too far or too soon—if you don’t use enough lube or stretch enough first, or if you just go too hard, for too long.

Mr. Stark’s breathing is stilted, like he’s choking on it.

“Peter,” he says, and his voice is like a harsh whisper.

He trails a hand up Mr. Stark's spine, his fingers lightly touching. He doesn't... really have an excuse for it. But Mr. Stark doesn’t protest, shuddering beneath Peter’s fingers. Carefully, Peter presses a little harder, and like he can't keep it in, Mr. Stark groans, low and throaty, and his hips jerk in a tell-tale fashion against the bed.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Well, uh. That would be—that would be the curse, coming back kicking.

"Keep going," Mr. Stark mumbles, and it's enough for Peter to press just a tiny bit harder, rolling his palms over the smooth, tantalizing skin of his back. He swallows, and it’s loud in the room. He presses his palms against Mr. Stark’s shoulders, working at the tense knots he finds there, and his cock twitches in his jeans at the sound of Mr. Stark’s answering moan.

Peter tries not to acknowledge it, growing hard with arousal and pure, unadulterated desire for the man lying on the bed in front of him, relaxed and pliant and so full of trust there under Peter’s fingers, even as Mr. Stark helplessly rocks his hips into the mattress, rutting against it like he can't stop.

"Say something," Mr. Stark gasps after a too-long moment of quiet. “Peter, _kid_ , come on.” Desperation laces his voice, and Peter drags his hands over his skin, pressing hard and soft in turns. He can’t believe this is happening.

“You’re beautiful,” Peter says, unable to stop himself. It’s true, it’s so true that it’s hard to breathe.

He’s not perfect. Peter’s not a kid anymore; he’s not a fourteen-year-old whose hero and crush showed up and offered to take him to Germany on a mission to save the world. He knows that Mr. Stark isn’t perfect, that he has more nightmares than he sleeps, that he drinks too much coffee and forgets to eat and shower until someone drags him out of the lab, that he doesn’t understand normal boundaries and has more scars than you could ever see by looking at him. Peter knows that.

But Mr. Stark— _Tony_ —is still beautiful, and captivating, and absolutely _completely_ wonderful.

It’s a ridiculous thing to say; probably out of line and if it weren’t for this curse, this stupid, awful curse, Mr. Stark would already be kicking him out of the room for being so inappropriate. As it is, Mr. Stark just moans in response, and then curses into the pillow beneath him, hips still rocking into the mattress, and it’s so obvious how desperate Mr. Stark is to come.

Peter doesn't know what possesses him to do it, but he slides a hand down Mr. Stark’s skin, careful to avoid the bruises. He runs his hand along Mr. Stark's back, his spine, his ass and lower, to his thighs. He brings it back up in a slow arch, and then leans down to press his lips against the back of Mr. Stark's neck.

Something snaps.

Peter doesn’t see it happen, or hear it—but he can feel it, in that same way that he knows when danger is near. Something just… snaps, **breaks**. Mr. Stark gasps wetly into the bed as his hips jerkily lose their rhythm against the bed. Peter watches, his eyes wide and his face hot, his cock straining against the fabric of his jeans as he kneels their next to Mr. Stark’s bed, watching the man he’s in love with come, his entire body shaking from the exhausting effort it took to get there.

And then, like a heavy weight has been thrown off of his back, Mr. Stark sags into the bed, still shaking, still breathing hard, but with so much relief it practically punches the air.

“God,” Mr. Stark says, his voice ragged. “I think it’s over. I think it’s done. Feels finished.”

“Good,” Peter answers, even though he’s confused. “But, um, how?”

Mr. Stark doesn’t answer right away, and Peter is just thinking of trying to find a way to exit Mr. Stark’s bedroom gracefully now without embarrassing himself even more by standing up, erection obvious and with what’s no doubt a damp patch at the front of his jeans. He’s aching to touch himself by this point, and not doing so is an exercise in self-control that he hadn’t been ready for.

But this obviously isn’t the time, and Peter can’t take advantage more than he already has.

“I think,” Mr. Stark says, and he sounds… bewildered, “it broke when you kissed my neck.”

He shifts, just slightly enough to lift up on one elbow and look directly at Peter’s face.

Peter’s face, if it’s even possible, burns an even deeper shade of red. He can’t believe he did that, he can’t believe he—

“It broke because I kissed you? Like—like Steve and Wanda’s curses?”

No way. That can’t be possible. It was a different curse, and besides, the cure to their curse had been true love’s kiss. As in, Steve and Wanda love Bucky and Vision _back_. Mr. Stark doesn’t—

Mr. Stark doesn’t.

“Kid?”

Peter nearly jumps, and then swallows hard when Mr. Stark’s fingers—rough, callused—lift just enough to touch the side of his neck, curling enough to be a good, steady grip. To keep Peter from jolting. Peter’s sure Mr. Stark can feel his skyrocketing pulse, and the heat of his blush.

“I.” What do you even say to that? “It’s.”

“Peter.”

_Breathe, Peter. Come on. Keep breathing. Everything is fine._

Mr. Stark’s smiling, the lines around his eyes crinkled up, and his mouth curving at the corners.

“I love you.”

Oh, God, he said it. He told him. He confessed. Years and years of trying to hide it, to get over it, of resigning himself to being in love with someone who would never love him back, and now—

Mr. Stark’s smile softens just a fraction, and he says, “I know.”

Peter stares at him, and Mr. Stark says, “Kid, come on, obviously the feeling is mutual.”

Peter’s “What?” is little more than a croak.

Mr. Stark tugs on Peter’s neck where he still has his hand wrapped, and Peter is dragged forward until he’s close enough for Mr. Stark to press a soft, close-mouthed kiss to his lips.

“I wish I could stay up and talk about this all night, but I’m about to pass out on you,” Mr. Stark says, wry.

“Oh!” Peter stumbles. “Right, you must be tired. I’ll go—I’ll just—I’ll go? Did you just _kiss_ me? Did you say you’re in love with me? I—what?”

Tony settles back down onto the bed, shifting over a few inches and closing his eyes, rubbing at them and his cheek before he lets loose a yawn. “Peter,” he says through it, and Peter loves the way his name sounds in Mr. Stark’s sleepy, tired voice.

“Mr. Stark?”

“Bed is more than big enough for two.”

Peter gets into the bed, heart in his throat, and sinks into Mr. Stark’s warmth as he shifts and throws an arm over Peter’s stomach. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” he mutters, and Peter—

Well, Peter isn’t sure he’s going to be able to sleep at all like this, but.

If everything that’s happening right now is really happening, if—if Mr. Stark is really in love with him—

He can’t hate magic too much after all.


End file.
